Casino Chip of the Day

Quote: 1BB

We have some serious collectors contributing to this great thread! Does anyone know the total amount of chips they possess? How about the total face value of your collections?

I have 422 $5 chips. So, $2110 in value I guess. Should break 500 by summer's end, if I make it to both Deadwood and Oklahoma as planned.

Haha wow you guys have great collections. I have about 50 $1 chips and tokens from las Vegas, Laughlin, & Arizona. I have 1 from new Orleans, a couple from Pennsylvania & California and one from Oklahoma

State: Nevada
City: Reno
Casino: Harrah's

According to a Wikipedia article that is one of the most poorly written and convoluted ones that I have ever waded through, the Harrah's casino in Reno was brought into existence by Bill Harrah in 1937 as a bingo parlor, closed, then reopened in 1938 as the Heart Tango. Surrounding casinos were subsequently absorbed, and in 1968-69, the adjacent Reno Grand Hotel was purchased and greatly added upon to create the first casino-hotel combination in the Harrah's line.

If I am reading the Wiki article correctly (and I'm not sure at all that I am), ownership went to the Promus Hotel Company in the mid-1990s but returned to Harrah's in 1999. My confusion on this comes primarily from two statements in the article that say, "Harrah's Entertainment in 1995-99 was a spin-off of the Promus Hotel Company," and "In 1999, the Promus Company dissolved and was sold to the Hilton Corporation and Harrah's went back to Las Vegas under its own company." It strikes me once again that authorship by committee is not always effective.

As noted in previous posts, there were times that Harrah's Reno and Harrah's Lake Tahoe used the same chips. The MOGH catalog shows examples of those from the 1950s through the 1980s. Some of those chips are labeled "Harrah's Club." The catalog also has Harrah's chips specifically for the Reno establishment issued as far back as 1948 (face value, 10¢). One of the $1 chips from the 1980s says, "Reno Only", suggesting that the dual-use chips may have been of some internal concern too.

The chip shown below was manufactured by the Bud Jones Company. It has eight edge inserts – 2 purple, 2 green, and 4 blue. The MOGH catalog shows two chips, one issued in 1996 and one in 2004, with designs so similar that I had to examine them for quite a while to detect any difference at all. The only thing I found was that the "$1" designation on the center inlay of the 2004 issue chips was very slightly larger. Since I did not collect my souvenir from the Harrah's in Reno until 2011, I would have expected it to be from the later issue, but it has the slightly smaller "$1" that seems to be associated with the 1996 issue. Perhaps it should be noted that in 1996, the Bud Jones Company was still an independent enterprise, while by 2004 it had combined with B+G and Paulson as part of Gaming Partners International.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the clay of some chips and/or inserts fluoresces under UV light. On this chip, the four blue edge inserts fluoresce, but the other four do not. There is also a hidden "BJ" logo that shows up under UV light, in the white area of the center inlay right below the capital "H" of Harrah's.




Edit 8/19/15: Member PokerGrinder has posted his 1980's chip from the Reno Harrah's here.

Quote: Doc

State: Nevada
City: Reno
Casino: Harrah's

Again that's good color-matching of the inserts and the inlay. I wonder why more chips aren't as coordinated as that

Here's my old-school roulette chips:

Quote: Doc

Yesterday, I mentioned that the clay of some chips and/or inserts fluoresces under UV light. On this chip, the four blue edge inserts fluoresce, but the other four do not. There is also a hidden "BJ" logo that shows up under UV light, in the white area of the center inlay right below the capital "H" of Harrah's.

Pics, please!

Quote: Nareed

Again that's good color-matching of the inserts and the inlay. I wonder why more chips aren't as coordinated as that

Wow. So good, I didn't realize that it was an inlay. I thought it was printing directly on the chip or some other type of process.

Quote: zippyboy

Quote: Doc

...UV images...

Pics, please!

Doc has posted several times that he has trouble photographing the UV images.

Quote: zippyboy

Pics, please!

I would love to be posting pics of that stuff. I just haven't yet been able to figure out how to get the photo. When I have the chips illuminated with UV light so that the "hidden" images are very clear to my eyes, my camera does not record what I can see, and it often records fluorescence that is far beyond what I can see, obscuring what I would like to show. I'll keep looking for a way to get the shots, but until I find one, I'll just report what I can see with my eyes.

When I did my swing through Northern Nevada, I'd wanted to stay in Reno, but Harrah's wouldn't give me a free room. So I stayed in Tahoe, which was a much longer drive from town than google maps had led me to believe. It was frustrating, because there was a bike race in Tahoe, and the property was overflowing with racers. Harrah's Tahoe was dead when I swung through. I don't understand how Harveys could be both sold-out and free, while Harrah's Reno couldn't find a room at all. Oh, well...

I think that the insert on the $5 chip and the insert on the $1 chips were the same color at Harrah's. I wonder if that means that they actually matched the $1 chip color to the insert color, or if they matched the inserts to the $1 chip and then just used that color for the $5 insert as well?

My understanding (derived from a combination of my father and the interweb) is that UV pictures come out best with a long exposure in an otherwise dark room.

Quote: Doc

I would love to be posting pics of that stuff. I just haven't yet been able to figure out how to get the photo.

I've done a little searching, but I get confusing tips. For instance, there is advice to use low ISO/ASA settings, but I've no idea how that applies to a digital camera.

BTW I tried using a stronger UV light at a colleague's office, but the room is too brightly lit always. I'll ask her if she will loan me the lamp over the weekend. My bedroom has blackout shades.

Doc -

Are you using fluorescent UV?

I looked into this a little and found one article that said incandescent black light bulbs, the kind sold at novelty stores like Spencer Gifts, work better for photography than fluorescent UV.

Quote: rdw4potus

My understanding (derived from a combination of my father and the interweb) is that UV pictures come out best with a long exposure in an otherwise dark room.

Thanks for both the chip image and the photography suggestion.

I will try to set something up for that long-exposure shot. Right now, the problem seems to (mostly) be that when I use the UV flashlight to illuminate the chip so that I can see the hidden images, the photo that my camera captures is greatly overexposed. It is possible that my $1.79 UV flashlight is putting out a lot of light in wavelengths that my camera can see but my eyes cannot, and that light is being reflected back to the lens giving the wash out. It could also be that the chip's fluorescence due to the UV light is intense in wavelengths that my camera can see but I cannot. Having the camera see things differently from the way I do has given quite a challenge in getting the right combination of illumination and exposure. I even tried to use my cell phone to take the photo, but I got similar results. I'll keep trying.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Are you using fluorescent UV?

I am using the cheapo UV flashlight that I bought on Amazon back in April. It is either the same or similar to this one, though I got mine for an even lower price. It provides light from nine LEDs attached to a circuit board where the bulb normally is in a flashlight.

I'll take a look around locally to see whether I can pick up another UV light source. I probably should consider the little flashlight as a first step rather than a final solution. It has been fun, though.

Quote: Doc

I'll take a look around locally to see whether I can pick up another UV light source. I probably should consider the little flashlight as a first step rather than a final solution. It has been fun, though.

Do you have a photo supply store nearby?

I would also advice looking up numismatic websites, as many people photograph fluorescent features on bank notes.

Quote: Doc

I would love to be posting pics of that stuff. I just haven't yet been able to figure out how to get the photo. When I have the chips illuminated with UV light so that the "hidden" images are very clear to my eyes, my camera does not record what I can see, and it often records fluorescence that is far beyond what I can see, obscuring what I would like to show. I'll keep looking for a way to get the shots, but until I find one, I'll just report what I can see with my eyes.

Many lens have UV filters built in or attached. Perhaps this is why the images are dropping out?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Many lens have UV filters built in or attached. Perhaps this is why the images are dropping out?

No, or not quite. Whatever fluorescence you see under a UV light is visible light. The UV merely excites some atoms so they emit faint visible light. Higher invisible wavelenghts, like X-rays, are even mroe efficient in making minerals fluoresce (that's how X-rays were discovered in the first place). If the reflectionw ere entirely in UV, you wouldn't see anything. People can't see UV light (well, not usually)

Finally! ... some progress on photographing the "hidden" UV images.

I read some consumer reviews of black light sources, and (in contrast to what DJTeddyBear had seen) I found a lot of negative reviews of the incandescent UV bulbs and favorable comments about the fluorescents tubes. I headed down to Spencer's and the clerk there confirmed that the incandescent bulbs just sorta give a purple glow without giving much of any "black light" effects.

So I picked up a UV CFL light bulb there, brought it home, and gave a try at photographing the hidden images on a few chips. It took a while to decide on the best setup and exposure time, but I found one that I think will work pretty well for most of the chips. I will try to get photos taken of my whole collection today (once I start, I might as well shoot them all), but it will take some time to do all of the image resizing and uploading to the file server.

As soon as I get them uploaded, I will post the UV images for the chips/casinos we have already passed in this thread; then, I will post the UV photo with each future Casino Chip of the Day (if it has hidden images) along with the usual image. I think it would be best not to go back and edit each prior post, add UV images there, and hope that everyone will take the time to go back and look. I'll just post them in batches at the current point in the thread as I get a few resized and uploaded. Then, if I can get myself motivated to do so, I can add notes in the old posts letting latecomers know where to find the UV images.

Interesting images (at least I think they are) coming soon ....

Quote: Doc

Finally! ... some progress on photographing the "hidden" UV images.

Great news!

Just for fun, and I am NOT suggesting you add this to your photo cue, try looking at currency, checks and credit cards under UV.

Quote: Doc

I read some consumer reviews of black light sources, and (in contrast to what DJTeddyBear had seen)....

In my defense, I had thought, based upon the earlier description, that you were using a handheld fluorescent device. And then read one report that incandescent was better.

But at least I motivated you to check it out, which led to a solution. Do I get credit for that?

Quote: Doc

Interesting images (at least I think they are) coming soon ....

Sweet!

Looking forward to it.

Quote: Doc

Finally! ... some progress on photographing the "hidden" UV images.

Certain wavelengths of UV can damage your eyes and burn your skin. Please be careful to use appropriate safeguards, Doc.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

In my defense, I had thought, based upon the earlier description, that you were using a handheld fluorescent device. And then read one report that incandescent was better.

But at least I motivated you to check it out, which led to a solution. Do I get credit for that?

As noted above (after your earlier comment, I think), I was using a handheld, LED, UV flashlight powered by three AAA batteries. I don't know whether a 120v. incandescent UV bulb would be better than that or not, but the CFL UV unit works just fine.

Yes, you most certainly do get credit for providing the needed motivation. I don't think I would ever have achieved any photo success with the flashlight, even though it works fine for inspection.

Progress report:

I have finished taking the photos, so now it's all work on the computer.

Quote: Doc

Progress report:

I have finished taking the photos, so now it's all work on the computer.

Sweet!

<drools in anticipation>

OK, folks, time for the first installment. I decided not to take "UV" photos of chips that only showed fluorescence of the basic clay, the edge inserts, or lines that were already obvious with visible light -- only those chips where something new was revealed by the UV light. Since the Paulson top hat and cane chips are by far the most common type in my collection, I hope no one is too surprised that the most common hidden image is a top hat and cane.

Of course, the UV images will be more understandable when I have them posted right next to the regular images, which is what I will do for each future Casino Chip of the Day. If you can only see what fluoresces, sometimes it's difficult even to identify the chip.

Edited later on 5/30/12: Per a suggestion, I added the plain photos to this post, too, just as I plan to do for future chips of the day.

As with the regular images, I will post these as 180x180 pixels in the thread, and you can see the 600x600 pixel versions by clicking on these. The larger images look much better, in my opinion.

Here are the first four; I'll try to get a few more posted this evening.

Aria (showing Paulson top hat and cane):


Barbary Coast (showing Paulson top hat and cane with "05" below):


Bellagio (showing Paulson top hat and cane):


Boulder Station (showing Paulson top hat and cane in the center plus a repeated "Boulder"):


Let me know what you think!

Quote: Doc

Here are the first four; I'll try to get a few more posted this evening.

Beautiful work as usual, Doc. You obviously speak the same language as the camera.

I just caught something very interesting! Look at the large version of the UV image of the Boulder Station chip, particularly the repeating "Boulder." Does anyone see what it is that I think is interesting? Talk about "hidden" stuff!

Quote: Doc

I just caught something very interesting! Look at the large version of the UV image of the Boulder Station chip, particularly the repeating "Boulder." Does anyone see what it is that I think is interesting? Talk about "hidden" stuff!

Are you referring to the misspelled "Buolder" near the center? or the "1" on top of the top hat and cane? I wonder if the typo is a security measure? Someone had mentioned earlier that perfect alignment of the inserts and edge spots was a giveaway that a cheque was counterfeit.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I wonder if the typo is a security measure?

It could be.

In currency a safety feature is microprinting the value of the note several times on a strip. Sometimes, not always, it contains a backward spelling, "say you see "five, five, evif, five, five..."

Quote: Ayecarumba

Are you referring to the misspelled "Buolder" near the center? or the "1" on top of the top hat and cane?

I completely missed the misspelling. I had thought that you were referring to what looks like something written in script in the right side of the hat.

It turns out that the "script", as well as the "I" you noticed, is a result of the dark and light sections of the regular printing.


---


Doc -

These look GREAT!

OK, you know how you're always looking for ideas for improvement? (You're gonna hate me....)


As you can tell, I had to go to the original Boulder Station post to look at the regular photo. You should post both. And, yeah, that means going back and updating all the old posts for chips that have UV printing.

And while you're doing that, update the index in the first post to indicate which chips have UV. I suggest changing the look a little:

casino

casino

casino

I added a white background to signify chips that don't have UV, and a violet background for those that do.

Note that I think that maybe the white background is kinda overkill. It's just something I did to show another option.

Now I'm wondering if the UV light might show Ballys as Ballsy...or Hard Rock as Hard Cork :)

Quote: DJTeddyBear

... These look GREAT!

OK, you know how you're always looking for ideas for improvement? (You're gonna hate me....)

No, I don't hate you -- I just ignore the suggestions that I am too lazy to implement.

Take a look back up to that earlier post with the UV images; I added the original photos beside the ones with the UV light. That's the way I plan to do future chips of the day, but I don't plan to go back and edit all of the earlier posts. I already have a note in all of those where it is relevant, saying to look at the list (a few pages back from here) where I described the hidden images. I'll go back and edit that post to say that catch-up UV images are posted starting on this page. I hope to get the UV images of all of the chips we have already passed added here by tomorrow.

Naw, I don't think I'll bother trying to add color shading to that table in post #1. Keeping that table up to date is enough of a nuisance as is.

OK, second batch.

Buffalo Bill's (showing Paulson top hat and cane):


Caesars Palace (showing Paulson top hat and cane):


CasaBlanca (showing Sun logo -- Is this why this is called the Sun mold?):


Club Cal Neva (showing "BJ" logo):

Keep it up, Doc! I look forward to the Luxor chips.

I only have one Luxor chip to post. It does have some interesting hidden stuff, but not so extreme as some of the things we saw posted in an article.

Quote: Doc

Avoiding the tedious description of changes in casino ownership like I stumbled through for the Four Queens yesterday, I'll just say that ownership of the Freemont changed a couple of times, with Sam Boyd acquiring it in 1983. It continues to be one of the Boyd Gaming casinos.

At the risk of being tedious, Sam Boyd had a reputation for squeaky clean honesty, which was somewhat rare 30 years ago. When the owners of the Starlite and the Fremont were taken away because the owners were skimming (see movie Casino with DeNiro), they were both given to Sam Boyd to operate. Since no one had kept straight books in the history of these casinos, no one realized how immensely profitable they were. They eventually made Sam Boyd a very rich man before he died in 1993.

Now THAT, Mr. Martin, is an example why we need your regular participation in this thread. I am clearly an amateur at digging out the facts.

Another batch:

Club Fortune (showing "BJ" logo):


Eldorado Reno (showing "BJ" logo and a small epsilon -- I don't know what that stands for):


Ellis Island (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):


Eureka (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):



I think that's it for tonight. I'll try to catch up on the rest of them tomorrow morning before I post a new chip of the day.

Quote: Doc

Eldorado Reno (showing "BJ" logo and a small epsilon -- I don't know what that stands for):

That's not an epsilon. It's the "e" from the logo of Eldorado.


Keep up the good work! I'm lovin' it!

It was a short night, but here are some more.

Excalibur (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):


Fiesta Rancho (showing a Paulson top hat and cane in the center and a repeated "Fiesta" -- Note the same "repeated name" oddity we saw on the Boulder Station chip):


Four Queens (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):


Gold Coast (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):



I'll post one more batch of these a little later, and that should bring the UV images up to date with the rest of the thread.

This thread has accumulated enough posts that it is once again nearing contention for the #2 spot in the "Top Threads" list. It occurs to me that if I had put each of these UV images in its own post rather than providing them in batches, then the thread would be out of second place by fewer than 20 posts. Then that other thread might need another artificial crisis/controversy to rebuild a lead. In retrospect, all of that drama that generated 150 or so posts there while I was out at WoVCon][ is a bit amusing. :-)

Quote: DJTeddyBear

That's not an epsilon. It's the "e" from the logo of Eldorado.

Outstanding! I missed that completely. At least someone is paying attention, even if I am not. I'll leave my error where you found it but make a note back in the table that lists these hidden images.

The misspelling is sort of silly,
Do they really think that a counterfeiter that could reproduce the chip
up to that point would be stymied by that?
Or are they supposed to not notice?

Quote: WongBo

The misspelling is sort of silly ....

Perhaps so. It wouldn't really surprise me if it were evidence of someone's sense of humor.

This batch should bring the UV images up to date with the previous posts in the thread.

Golden Nugget Las Vegas (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):


Hacienda (showing a faint "BJ" logo under the "H" -- I should try to get a better photo the next time I set up for that):


_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Edit 6/4/12: Got set up again today and took this shot of the Hacienda chip, which I think shows the "BJ" logo better.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________


Harrah's Las Vegas (showing a Paulson top hat and cane):


Harrah's Reno (showing a "BJ" logo):

Wow. I had previously remarked that the color match on the Harrah's Reno inlay was so good, that I didn't realize it was an inlay. But the UV clearly shows that it is!



Unless I'm mistaken, all of the UV images have a top hat & cane or BJ logo.

Do all the chips that don't have UV, have visible manufacturer's marks?

Are there any that have both? (And, NO, I do not expect you to check every chip already posted....)

Quote: WongBo

The misspelling is sort of silly,
Do they really think that a counterfeiter that could reproduce the chip
up to that point would be stymied by that?
Or are they supposed to not notice?

Who knows. I've seen counterfeit bills which are very good, but miss things like the backwards spelling ont he "security" strip. Others misspell words on the note. And I'm talking about high quality attempts, not mere color copies on plain bond paper.

The other thing is that the more "security" features you add to something, the easier it si the counterfeiter will trip. Also the easier it is that someone checking authenticity will trip, too.

BTW when I check bills, I go straight for two things, if present: holograms and color-shifting ink. Absent that I look for the watermark, specifically that it NOT be visible when not backlit.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Wow. I had previously remarked that the color match on the Harrah's Reno inlay was so good, that I didn't realize it was an inlay. But the UV clearly shows that it is!

I think we're using different meanings for "color match." It seems you mean the color produced in one part of the manufacturing process matches the same color produced in antoher part. I mean that the colors go well together and complement each other.

I meant, as I mentioned in the prior post, that the WHITE of the inlay matched the WHITE of the chip, to the point where I thought that the printing had been done directly onto the chip.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Do all the chips that don't have UV, have visible manufacturer's marks?

Are there any that have both? (And, NO, I do not expect you to check every chip already posted....)

All of the ones for Nevada casinos are supposed to have the manufacturer's name or logo on at least one side, per NGCB regulations. Check item 2(c) in the list I recently posted here when discussing Harrah's Laughlin. Many of the Paulson chips have both the molded hat and cane and the hidden UV image of a hat and cane.

I think there are a few chips for which I have still not found a manufacturer's logo or name. An example would be the Arizona Charlie's East chip, which the MOGH catalog says is from Chipco. There are things on the chip that fluoresce, but I haven't found anything that looks like a Chipco logo.

I have just discovered that some of the small chip images posted early in this thread, and some of the links to the larger images, no longer were working properly. I know that they worked previously, but today I found extra spaces within the URLs in my posts. Of course, the links were then invalid.

Has anyone detected such a problem elsewhere? It's a bit as if either there was a problem with the site or someone else has found their way in to edit/damage my posts. In most cases, the spurious space occurred between the "link=" or "img=" and the "http:".

I also noticed when I previewed this very post that when I had followed the "http:" above with "//www..." the phrase showed up in blue, as if it were a hyperlink. Is this supposed to be some upcoming "feature" of the site or is it something that my browser is sticking in? I haven't been seeing that before when I have entered full URLs. I don't think I like it.

Any ideas about how my old posts got modified?

I have now gone back and corrected the issues, and everything appears to be working again. For now.

State: Nevada
City: Lake Tahoe
Casino: Harvey's

I have once again stumbled upon conflicting (?) pages in Wikipedia. The really surprising thing perhaps is that I continue to be surprised by such things.

When I posted the chip for Harrah's Lake Tahoe, I reported that Bill Harrah had purchased the Gateway Club in 1955, opened it as Harrah's Lake Club, then sold to Harvey Gross in 1956 at a substantial mark-up. I noted that the establishment became Harvey's Lake Tahoe. All of that info came from this Wiki page. I then said that the price mark-up was so extreme that there had to be more to the story.

Well, this Wiki page may not tell the rest of the story, but it sure tells a different one. There, it says that Harvey's Lake Tahoe opened in 1944 then opened its first high-rise tower in 1961. Whatever happened to buying it from Bill Harrah in 1956? At least that second Wiki page has this intriguing story:

Quote: 2nd cited Wiki page

The hotel suffered an explosion from a 1,000 pound bomb on August 27, 1980, that left a crater three stories deep when it was detonated by the FBI. (The area around the hotel had been cleared, and no one was injured.) The bomb was placed by John Birges, a heavily in-debt Fresno landscaper who had lost at least $1 million at casinos in Stateline and was hoping to extort another $3 million from the bomb threat. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he died from liver cancer in 1996.

I suppose I can still be intrigued by such tidbits I find in Wikipedia, even though my confidence in their accuracy is dropping through the basement floor.

The chip shown below has extreme but certainly understandable similarity to the Harrah's Lake Tahoe chip posted four days ago. The base chip is an identical, white, RHC Paulson hat and cane with two gray edge inserts and two black ones. The center inlays are different on the two sides, but each side is identical to a side of the Harrah's chip, except for the details and styling of the name of the establishment. They even use the same illustration of the lake and surrounding mountains. (While that image is cute, the real ones look a lot nicer.) In spite of the chip similarities, the MOGH catalog says the Harvey's chip was issued a decade earlier, in 1996.



Nope, no UV images on either the Harrah's or Harvey's chips.

Here is my Harveys chip from around 1990. As we discussed when I posted my Harrah's Tahoe chips, those and this one have brass inserts and inlays and this Harveys chip, which has an even larger inlay than my Harrah's chips, seems to be the heaviest chip in my collection